Let the Festivities Begin!

The day I have been waiting for months to arrive finally came! Winco came to Orem! This morning I took my mother-in-law and 3 of my kids to go see. It was really more of a recon mission than anything else. I'm sure the employees and customers were looking at me strangely for bringing a camera, but I told them I was going to blog about it and reassured them I would be good advertising.

Now Dayne asked if I was sure I wanted to go to the opening day because of the long lines. I ignorantly said, "Oh it won't be that bad. It's only a grocery store." (I know, can you believe those words came out of my mouth! ONLY a grocery store!)

Needless to say, thefirst thing we saw as we pulled up was a completely full parking lot and a long line just to get into the store. I had a slight moment of panic, but I kept it together. We found out that the line was made up of people who didn't feel as comfortable as we did about following the shoppers coming out and begging a cart off them. So we quickly got around that obstacle.This was the real obstacle. I am quite certain half of Orem and a bit of Pleasant Grove were inside Winco between the hours of 9 and 10 am. But they handed out Grandma Sycamore bread and hats for the kids at the door.

Not everyone was equally impressed.

This is just one of the many things I love about Winco, the bulk foods. You can find everything from candy to cereal to spices to dried fruit and snacks, and just about any type of flour you could think of. (Not to mention the nutritional foods like brewers yeast, flax seed, and much more.)

And they had lots of goodies to sample like ice cream and yogurt and cookies.

This is where we got to get in line for the check out. Not the check out line, the line for the check out lines.

This was the other side of the check out.
It turned out to be a fun adventure. There were some crabby old ladies in line with us at one point that said they preferred Wal-Mart, but most everyone was either all cheery or all business, thumbing through coupons. So I didn't get to see everything, but I'll give a quick run down on some things that may be better at Winco or better at Costco.

First, better at Winco: more selection of meat and portions of meat, cheaper eggs, Digiorno pizza ($3.98), cereal, cheese, produce (all good quality).

Now, better at Costco: probably will buy my frozen chicken still at Costco simply because of the small amount you get in a bag at Winco. I would just as soon get a bigger bag. We will always love Costco organic tortilla chips, diapers & wipes, and milk is pretty much a draw, but I prefer Costco since theirs is hormone free.

Ok, that's pretty much all I can say right now since I didn't go in with pen and paper. Some people have time and resources to shop around and stop at a few stores for the best deals. I, however, am lucky if I get throught one store before somebody has to take a nap or is just plain too irritable for shopping. For those of you in my position, Winco is the best one stop shop. However, you will still see my shining face (mostly from perspiration) at Costco at least once a month.